762 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



knows very much about the great middle section of the South, what 

 is called the " Land of the Sky," comprising the upland plateaus and 

 mountain sections of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, 

 Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky? Within this area, as 

 large as France and twice as large as Great Britain, will be found 

 timber and minerals equal to both the countries named, and a poten- 

 tial in agriculture equal to either, as yet very sparsely populated. 



Yet under a craze for centrifugal expansion we are now in danger 

 of trying to develop tropical islands far away, already somewhat 

 densely peopled, where white men can not work and live, to our detri- 

 ment, danger, and loss, while we fail to see that if we expand cen- 

 tripetally by the occupation and use of the most healthy and produc- 

 tive section of our own country, we may add immensely to our pros- 

 perity, our wealth, to our profit without cost and without militarism. 

 This sparsely settled Land of the Sky is greater in area and far greater 

 in its potential than the Philippine Islands, Cuba, and Porto Rico 

 combined. Verily, it seems as if common sense were a latent and 

 sluggish force, often endangered by the noisy and blatant influence of 

 the venal politician and the greed of the unscrupulous advocates of 

 vassal colonies who now attempt to pervert the power of government 

 to their own purposes of private gain. 



Witness the blunders of the past : 



We nearly gave away Oregon because it was held not to be worth 

 retaining. 



When the northern boundary of Wisconsin was being determined, 

 it was put as far north as it was then supposed profitable farming could 

 ever extend, excluding Minnesota, now one of our greatest sources of 

 wheat. 



The Great American Desert in my own school atlas covered a 

 large part of the most fertile land now under cultivation. 



What blunders are we now making for lack of " speculation " 

 or " intellectual examination " as to the future of American farming 

 and farm lands? 



On one point to which Mr. Hyde refers I must cry peccavi. He 

 rebukes the editor of the Popular Science Monthly for admitting an 

 article in which a potential of 400,000,000 bushels of wheat is at- 

 tributed to the State of Idaho. The total depravity of the type-writ- 

 ing machine caused the mechanism to spell Montana in the letters 

 I-d-a-h-o. What I imputed to Idaho is true of Montana, if the Chief 

 of the Agricultural Experiment Stations of Montana is a competent 

 witness, if all its arable land were devoted to wheat. It will be 

 observed that I mentioned Idaho incidentally (meaning Montana), 

 taking no cognizance of the estimate given, because it was at present 

 of no practical importance. 



